Employees are usually motivated to stay or leave due to their managers

Once upon a time, a company wanted to cut costs and
decided to conduct layoffs. The management instructed the
manager, to give a list of the names of employees to be laid
off.

The manager thought that the employees were the assets
of the company and if they were laid off, then the company’s
value would be diluted. After much thought, the manager
wrote only his name on the list and submitted it to the
management. The management took this as noncompliance
and the manager was fired. A new manager was appointed
and was asked to prepare a new list.

The new manager was egoistical and selected only those
employees to be laid off, who did not flatter him. Most of
the employees were disgusted with the new manager. When
the employees learnt that in order to protect their jobs, the
previous manager had lost his own job, they immediately felt
a very strong loyalty towards the previous manager.

The employees contacted the previous manager, who in
the meantime, had joined a second company. The previous
manager, after consultation with the management of the
second company, suggested the employees to join him.
Almost all of the employees resigned from the first company
and joined the second company, so that they could work
under their previous manager.

The first company faced an employee turnover problem,
while suffering training expenses to train fresh recruits.
Whereas the second company profited, by capitalizing the
intellectual capital of the trained employees, of the first
company.

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Excerpt from the book “Once Upon A Time: 100 Management Stories” by Rajen Jani